Additional infoThe special 2 disc edition features comments in the lyric booklet from every band member about the making of each song and their own thoughts about it. Also in the booklet are several pages with different artwork and behind the scenes photos.

Tim Lambesis's army has launched another rocket to the fans by dropping As I Lay Dying's sixth studio album namely Awakened. Since we know that last EP (Decas) wasn't up to the mark and also gave us a haze of chaos "feelings" about what the new album would be like, well, Awakened stood up the best from its worst and has lives up to the expectations. As I Lay Dying's journey has always been unsettling through bewildering albums and horror play of mixing up styles between hardcore and metalcore but it's imperative that As I Lay Dying, no matter what, they've always settled for the status quo. With superbly talented producer Bill Stevenson taking charge of Awakened, my optimistic gas kit kicked in up high.

I like sound they get, drums pump tempo and rhythm guitars are so fat, it became as one massive attack, however I can not say that songs are so great and interesting, there's no passion as in "forever", old stuff.

I don't know what to think of this. It is good but Cauterize at the start is so catchy it keeps playing in my head so the rest of the tracks bring much less enjoyment.

I also don't know what to think of this band's progression. It is usual for bands that get more "poppy" to also get more simple and plain. Yet this band gets more and more "complex" (still not very complex but it doesnt have to be), diverse, focused and "musical" with each release but at the same time also gets more and more poppy and accessible with more and more cleans and catchy choruses.

I guess at times I miss the much simpler, much more stripped down, much more "plain" days of Shadows Are Security, it just felt stronger and more aggressive. But I do like the last three album as well.

Yet this band gets more and more "complex" (still not very complex but it doesnt have to be), diverse, focused and "musical" with each release but at the same time also gets more and more poppy and accessible with more and more cleans and catchy choruses.

I quite agree with you that ASID wasn't pretty accessible as far as their initial works are concerned. They started with straight up hardcore metal and then divulged themselves into simple metalcore. Honestly, I wasn't expecting "awesome moments" out of this album but woah! this record really blown me up. This is a great stuff. Well, to the part of complexity...I really don't think that this band was complex in their musical counterparts. As I said, they started with harsh hardcore vocals covering their old albums pretty straightforward hardcore records and till the "The Powerless" drops in, their music took a completely different direction. So, yeah with their each release they got more accessed to their music and fans but as far as complexity factor is concerned, I think they never get any complexity in their music/ progression towards their albums.

Finally got around to checking out this release. Loving it so far. AILD are the only metalcore band where I've ever actually enjoyed every release they come out with; most other metalcore bands that I like I only actually like maybe 1 or 2 of their albums, or only a handful of their songs.